Quote Of The Day: GOP Fantasy Camp Edition

The first one they went after, starting decades ago, was the media. Now Republicans don’t believe what they hear on any channel other than Fox News. Then they moved to scientists … and now you see in polls Republicans who just don’t believe in scientists. They’ve turned on universities, and you see this rising discontent among conservatives about university. They are now turning on federal law enforcement.

And if a significant percentage of the population — 35, 40 per cent — believes that federal law enforcement is biased, you’ll see those people less likely to co-operate with investigations, less likely to blow the whistle, and less likely to believe DOJ prosecutors when they sit on juries. It is extremely damaging to the long-term ability of those institutions to do their jobs.

This is all about saving Donald Trump’s ass. I am horrified that they’re willing to go such extreme lengths so save his skin but I’m not surprised. The GOP has been running a political fantasy camp since Reagan who often confused real life with old movies. The Beavis-Duce administration amped up the fantasy quotient by lying us into war and attacking members of the “reality based” community. I wish people would stop saying the Bushies weren’t as bad as those of us with memories longer than a nano-second think they were. They were horrible.

Another thing that alarms me is the erosion of the oversight functions established after Watergate. We learned that the FBI and CIA abused their power, and Congress clamped down on them. There was NO oversight of the CIA until the 1970’s and J Edgar Hee Haw was a law unto himself. The oversight functions ain’t what they used to be, but under Trump they may disappear.

Remember when the Republicans were the law and order party? You can’t have law and order without law enforcement and for all its flaws the FBI is one of the premier law enforcement agencies in the world. It’s beyond insane to damage it in the name of protecting the criminal who currently lives in the White House, especially since the FBI’s culture is conservative and predominantly Republican.

As a member of the reality based community, I hope the “Nunes report” blows up in his and the president’s* face. Of course, the Alex Joneses of the world will believe that the FBI released a letter that damaged Hillary Clinton but was really designed to hurt Trump. That’s what Fox News and the GOP fantasy camp has led us to.

The last word goes to Steve Winwood and Eric Clapton. Rock-n-roll can’t cure what ails the country but it can’t hurt it either.